PHILLY-ROOTS-L Archives

Archiver > PHILLY-ROOTS > 1998-04 > 0891495145


From: LYNN JEFFERIES< >
Subject: Kensington
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 00:32:25, -0500


Just had to say my piece here. When I read "Whitetown, USA" my
overall impression was that the author seemed to have a preconceived
bias. Using that bias, he concentrated on trying to prove it. The
author generalized and stereotyped. I took into consideration the
time period in which it was written, but still can find nothing to
recommend it as an honest portrayal. Binzen definitely isn't an
authority that I would cite to try to prove a point - not with his
jaundiced viewpoint. Most of my family was from Kensington and none
of them were like the people portrayed in that book.

A much more honest book was "Voices of Kensington" where both
positive and negative aspects of living in the area were mentioned
through the oral history of area residents. Kensington wasn't a
utopia. It was an industrial town, within a city, with the good and
bad that went with it. The area wasn't pretty, but the people that I
knew were decent and hard working, trying to do the best for their
children within the means they had available.

Lynn

Lynn

This thread: